The 2025-26 NHL season is nearly upon us, and the Flyers’ next generation of defenders is beginning to take shape–today, we’ll look at two of the most important. One defenseman, Cam York, signed a sparkling new contract over the summer with an Annual Average Value (AAV) of $5.15 million and a five-year term; the other, his good buddy Jamie Drysdale, is in the last year of a bridge deal he originally signed with the Anaheim Ducks.
Both have something to prove this year: York that he was worth the contract extension, and Drysdale that he’s deserving of a new contract with the Flyers at all. Let’s get into it.
Jamie Drysdale
What did we see from Drysdale last season?
We’ve harped on this a lot before, but it truly was a tale of two seasons for Drysdale: pre-injury and post-injury. Before he missed time, Drysdale struggled mightily, posting a 40.89 Corsi-for percentage and 38.22 expected Goals-for percentage, per Natural Stat Trick–not great! Upon coming back, he saw his underlying metrics steadily improve and, by the time the season wrapped up, everyone was talking about his strong second half (which really began in December). When the Flyers played their final game of 2024-25, Drysdale had seven goals and 20 points in 70 games and averaged nearly 20 minutes per night.
It was Drysdale’s first full season with the Flyers, so some growing pains were expected. Drysdale wasn’t able to replicate the point production he’d had in Anaheim, though it wasn’t for lack of power play time: with the Flyers, Drysdale played 152 minutes on the power play–the second most of his career, behind the 2021-22 season where he had nearly 168 minutes.
Regardless of the box scores, there were improvements under the hood, with Drysdale posting a 51.02 xGF% when all was said and done–the first time that full-season metric’s been positive in his career. Progress is progress, no matter how small.
What type of role do we expect Drysdale to play this season?
There’s a lot of flux on the Flyers’ blue line heading into the season, and Drysdale’s role may be the most up in the air. With Rasmus Ristolainen out, there is an opening in the top four for a right-shot defenseman, and Drysdale makes the most sense. However, we can’t predict whether the coaching staff will trust him in those sorts of minutes, or decide to shelter him in a third-pair role with someone like Nick Seeler. Maybe Rick Tocchet likes what he sees in Drysdale and decides to play him up the lineup; Tocchet has worked his magic with undersized offensive defensemen before, and maybe a bit of that carries over to Philadelphia.
For special teams, we’d be surprised if Drysdale got significant penalty kill time. Maybe the coaching staff uses the PK as a way to teach Drysdale how to be better defensively but, with so many steadier options, that’s difficult to envision. Whether Drysdale ends up on the top power play unit or not is the more intriguing question.
Drysdale led Flyers defensemen in power play time last year and, in our eyes, is the favorite once again; there aren’t exactly any other defensemen banging down the door to run the power play (though York has a chance–more on that in a minute). The smooth skating, offensive upside of Drysdale makes him a natural choice to quarterback the top unit, and maybe the addition of his buddy Trevor Zegras revitalizes the whole power play.
We’d like to see Drysdale be a permanent top-four defenseman this year, and maybe we can expect that with Ristolainen out–but extending that expectation across a full season may be foolish if the right side depth chart is, ultimately, Sanheim, Ristolainen, and finally Drysdale. That said, we do expect Drysdale to be the go-to option on the power play, and we hope he can really make that unit his own. It’s a contract year for Drysdale and he needs to prove he belongs with the Flyers long term in some capacity, and becoming a high-end power play quarterback would go a long way in that regard.
Cam York
What did we see from York last season?
This is a tricky one. York didn’t produce the sort of points we would’ve liked, despite having a 52.53 xGF%; the play driving was there but the finish was not, as shown by his actual Goals-for percentage of 43.69, per Natural Stat Trick, through 66 games. His average time on ice of 20:47 was second highest of Flyers skaters, behind only Travis Sanheim, which shows a level of trust from the coaching staff that he could handle the minutes.
That “trust” doesn’t exactly track with how things ended between York and then-head coach John Tortorella, though. If you’ll recall, York was healthy scratched the game after Tortorella was fired for crossing a line, though in perhaps the strangest manner possible: the Flyers couldn’t recall any replacement defensemen post-trade deadline, so York dressed for the game and sat on the bench the entire time. This is the Flyers, after all, so nothing is ever normal.
The rift between York and Tortorella may explain some (or much) of why York seemed to stagnate in 2024-25–it’s hard to play at your best when the coach isn’t communicating with you, and we can’t separate York’s final results from that internal strife. Still, the Flyers front office believed in York enough to choose him over Tortorella, then hand him a five-year contract with a $5.15-million AAV. Tortorella may not have believed in York, but the Flyers sure seem to.
What type of role do we expect York to play this season?
A big one. It’s a new coaching staff and the absence of Rasmus Ristolainen will complicate the structure of the Flyers’ blue line, but we expect York to be, at the very least, deployed in a top-four role. Beyond that, all options are on the table–and there are many.
If Rick Tocchet and the rest of the new coaching staff are happy with the top pairing of York and Sanheim, then there’s the Flyers’ de facto top pair for the 2025-26 season. However, with Ristolainen out of the lineup, maybe the Flyers move York to the second pair to play with, say, Helge Grans, and move Jamie Drysdale up to the top pair with Sanheim. Perhaps the Flyers like the idea of two long term friends on the same pair, and play York and Drysdale together. There are myriad combinations within the top four, mostly dependent on who steps up in camp and replaces Ristolainen, but we’re quite confident York will be one of those four.
Special teams opportunity, however, is quite another matter. York played fewer than 10 minutes on the power play last year, after spending 171 minutes on the man advantage in 2023-24–that’s a dramatic drop in ice time. A new coaching staff, though, presents a chance for York to establish himself as a go-to power play quarterback. We suspect the favorite is Drysdale, but York will likely get opportunities as well; how that labor is divided between the first and second unit will be one of the main storylines to watch throughout camp and into the start of the regular season.
As for penalty kill minutes, York will probably maintain a primary role for the Flyers when down a man; his 123:42 of time on the PK was second only to, once again, Sanheim. There’s less competition for penalty kill, considering there are generally four defensemen split between two units, as opposed to power play units which usually only have one blueliner each. It would be odd to see any significant drop in York’s penalty kill responsibilities, so we expect him to remain a go-to option for the new coaching staff.
If the Flyers are to improve in the standings after last year’s bottom-of-the-division finish, their young blueliners are going to have to step up and provide consistent, solid play. York and Drysdale both have different things to prove this season, at different points in their careers, but it’s a transitionary time as they both prepare to eventually (we hope) take over the Flyers’ defense group from the current veterans–turning in a solid 2025-26 season would show that they’re well on their way.
